Title

Author

Degree Type

Thesis

Date of Award

2011

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Computer Science

First Advisor

Samik Basu

Abstract

The spread of infections (disease, ideas, fires, etc.) in a network (group of people, electronic network, forest, etc.) can be modeled by the evolution of states of nodes in a graph defined as a function of the states of the other nodes in the graph. Given an initial configuration of the graph with a subset of the nodes infected, a propagation function that specifies how the states of the nodes change over time, and a quarantine function that specifies the generation of regions centered on the infected nodes, from which the infection cannot spread; we identify and verify intervention policies designed to contain the propagation of the infection over the network. The approach can be used to determine an effective policy in such a scenario.